First, let’s get to the updated power ratings:
Oregon is still my #1 team in the country. They’re just the most statistically dominant team, and that’s what these rankings are based off of. It’s not emotional or subjective at all–the only thing subjective about my rankings is the statistical categories I’ve included and the weighting I attach to each one. If people have an issue with that stuff, that’s fine. But by the stats I value the most, Oregon is the best team in the country currently.
There’s a lot I don’t agree with on these rankings. I don’t think Penn State should be #3, Notre Dame probably shouldn’t be #2 (but I do think they’re vastly underrated, and for them to be at #15 in the CFP rankings is ludicrous), I don’t think LSU should be at #5, I don’t think Michigan should be at #6, I don’t think Miami should be #10 and I don’t think A&M should be #13. I think Georgia should be higher.
But that’s all based on my opinions of those teams–the eye test and things like that. I could well be wrong, which is why I like to have these power rankings as my statistical anchor–a true north to determine whether I’m actually seeing what I think I’m seeing when I watch these teams play. Are they really as good or as bad as I think they are? Because I obviously can’t watch every single snap live for every single team and then spend hours breaking down the All 22 for every team. That’s where the stats help.
Anyway, let’s get on to the betting picks.
First we’ll recap how the picks from last week went: 14-7 record against the spread. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.
The Ohio State -14.5 was a tough one. If you managed to get them at -13.5, good for you. It should also go without saying that if you find better odds than what I am recommending, you definitely take it–like if I am recommending you take Ohio State -14.5, and you can get them for -13.5 or even -14, that’s even better. However, if the line moves to -15 or -15.5, then you’re on your own. I can’t recommend laying more points than what I pick.
Another thing: I am not betting Washington to cover anymore. I don’t trust that team. In a dogfight with Stanford into the 4th quarter? Hell no. That’s two straight weeks now that Washington has more or less been pushed to the brink by a horrible opponent. We cannot trust Washington to cover large spreads until they prove otherwise. They are not playing well at the moment.
So here are the picks for week 9:
There’s a lot of picks this week.
We are now 60-44-1 on the season against the spread, which is 57.7%.
We are talking about a large sample size of 106 games picked. I think that’s pretty damn solid. Any Vegas pro will tell you it’s unreasonable to expect to hit at a much higher rate than that over the course of a season.
National Landscape Overview
I’m going to do this week’s CFB recap a little differently. Because the first CFP rankings are coming out on Tuesday night, I am going to start with kind of an overall assessment of the national landscape and the playoff picture rather than just go through the biggest games one by one. I’ll still touch on a few of the big games from this past weekend, but this is going to be more of a zoomed-out analysis of how I think the rest of this season might play out.
This is starting to feel more and more like a year where Alabama might just win the National Championship by default, simply because they have by far the most talented roster in the country.
There are no great teams out there–there is no 2019 LSU that you look at and say, “They should beat everybody.” There’s a group of about 7-8 teams that have a chance to win the National Championship, but when you compare them to the great teams of previous years, I don’t think any of them are on the level of a 2019 LSU, 2020 Bama or 2021 Georgia.
I haven’t been able to do the power ratings for all past seasons yet, but I have done 2022, 2021 and 2019. I skipped over the Covid year because the further we get from it, the more wonky it looks with the benefit of hindsight. It was just such a weird year and really only the top programs were able to adapt and thrive in that chaotic environment–Bama, Ohio State, Clemson, Notre Dame, Georgia to a lesser degree.
Last year’s Georgia team, 2022, scored a 2.833 power rating (lower numbers are better). 2021 Georgia scored a 3.389. And the best team in the 2019 season was, perhaps surprisingly, not LSU but Ohio State, who scored a 2.944. (The reason lower numbers are better is because it’s just an average of where you rank across a variety of statistical categories, so the best you can be is #1 in everything, or 1.000.) Any team that lands under 4.000 is super elite, essentially.
How do the best teams of this season stack up to the best teams of previous seasons? It’s not even close. Oregon, my #1 team in the country is 12.000. Ohio State is 17.222. Georgia is 23.556. Alabama is 26.556.
Now, obviously it’s unfair to compare these teams through week 8 to teams that played full seasons, and I’m sure these teams will improve over the next few months before they reach the postseason, but there just isn’t really any one dominant team out there. This year’s Oregon would’ve ranked 4th in the country last year behind Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State. They’d have ranked 5th in 2019.
2019 might not be a fair comparison because that was just a wild year where there were legitimately three generationally elite teams at the top of the rankings (LSU, Clemson and Ohio State) yet only LSU gets remembered because they were the ones that won the Natty. But still: this year just doesn’t have the great teams that we’ve seen in past years.
So, again, there’s no one dominant team, it’s more like a group of teams, all flawed in some way, that comprise the National Championship contenders.
Here are those teams, in my view, and in no particular order:
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Ohio State
- Michigan*
- Oregon
- Florida State
- Texas
- Oklahoma
*cheaters who should be disqualified
Your National Champion will be one of those 8 teams.
Now, you know me, I think Michigan is the most fraudulent college football program ever, so I don’t think they have a chance to win it all–especially since they can’t cheat anymore. But if they are somehow not disqualified from postseason play, they do have a chance to make the playoff so by virtue of that I have to include them. But in my view there is a 0.0% chance Michigan wins the National Championship. They don’t recruit at a National Championship level, they don’t have the perimeter athletes, they’re overrated as fuck, and they’re not able to cheat anymore–everyone is wise to their game now, so they no longer have that advantage of knowing exactly what the other team is running every play. They’re cooked.
I don’t think Oklahoma can win the Natty even though they are still alive in the Big 12 and for the playoff. The past few weeks we’ve seen them in some close games with inferior opponents, and now they’ve just lost to Kansas on the road, giving up 38 points. Oklahoma has for the past few weeks felt to me like one of those teams that a loss would eventually find. They haven’t been dominant; they have been flirting with disaster for a few weeks now and now disaster has finally found them. I don’t believe in this Oklahoma team as a National Championship contender, but I’ve got to include them in this list because they are still alive for the Big 12 Championship and the playoff.
So really, my true National Championship contenders are Georgia, Bama, Ohio State, the Cheaters, Oregon and Florida State.
I do not include Washington in there because they are an even worse offender than Oklahoma in terms of flirting with disaster. They play most of their games late at night when nobody in the Eastern half of the country is watching, but Washington has been in some real dogfights with bad teams the past two weeks: a 15-7 win over Arizona State at home, then this week they beat a terrible Stanford team 42-33 on the road. Washington is going to lose a game sometime soon–they are not a dominant team, they don’t have elite talent on defense, and I do not think there is any way they can win a National Championship.
In fact, I think if they rematched Oregon at a neutral site, Oregon would beat them handily. Oregon, to me, is the clear-cut best team in the Pac 12 even though Washington won the head to head matchup. That’s one of those situations where I think if they played 10 times Oregon would probably win at least 7 times and Washington would win no more than three times, but because they only play once, it sometimes happens where it’s one of those “30% outcome” games. The one game they play might just happen to be one of the three games that Washington would win.
If there’s a box with 100 balls in it, 70 of which are Oregon green and 30 of which are Husky purple, then on any given time I reach into the box and pluck out a ball, there’s a 70% chance it’s a green ball. But there’s still a 30% chance on every pull that it’s a purple ball. If I pull out 100 balls, it’ll probably be close to a 70-30 split in favor of green. But if I only pull one ball, there’s a chance it’ll be a purple one, even though the odds do not favor it. And I might think that because I pulled a purple ball, there are more purple balls in the box than green balls, when that’s not the case at all.
This is why, by the way, I don’t factor record and head to head matchups into my power ratings–because games are fluky, and oftentimes the inferior team can win if things just bounce their way. Unless the game is a complete blowout that leaves absolutely no doubt, you can’t convince me Team A is better than Team B just because Team A won a head to head matchup. If the game was close in the 4th quarter, then a head to head matchup doesn’t really prove a whole lot to me.
If Washington would’ve beaten Oregon 42-7, fine–I’m willing to say Washington is the better team. But they didn’t win 42-7. They won 36-33 and Oregon missed a potential game-tying field goal at the end. I simply refuse to believe that that result is definitive proof that Washington is better than Oregon, especially because Oregon is the superior team in just about every measurable statistic including recruiting and talent rankings.
So all this is to say, I fully expect Oregon to win out and win the Pac 12, and I’m not even sure Washington will be there to play them in the Championship game. Washington could very well lose at USC this weekend, and then they still have to play Utah, Oregon State and Washington State. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose more than one of those games.
Another team that’s been flirting with disaster has been Florida State, even though they’ve looked pretty good as of late. The past four weeks, they beat a crappy Virginia Tech team that is kind of getting better lately but was asscheeks when FSU played them. They beat up on Syracuse, but Syracuse has completely imploded as of late and they even got blown out by Virginia Tech this past week–Syracuse is terrible. FSU beat Duke by a score that looks like a blowout, 38-20, but that game completely flipped after Riley Leonard went down. I thought Duke was on pace to win that game in Tallahassee until Leonard’s injury, then Florida State just took control and ran away with it. Very deceptive score. And then FSU destroyed a horrible Wake Forest team. But I don’t really believe in Florida State as a true National Championship contender. I think they’re going to get exposed sooner or later.
So that leaves us with Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, the Cheaters and Texas.
I thought Texas was really good, but I’m just not sure I fully trust them after they lost to an Oklahoma team that I don’t think is elite. Plus, with Ewers out, it’s very possible Texas loses a game here soon. They could well lose to Kansas State this weekend–that’s a huge game, and it’s going to be very tough to win without Ewers. If that happens and Texas has two losses, it’s going to be nearly impossible to get into the playoff. The committee may cut them some slack if their second loss comes with Ewers out, but I wouldn’t count on it.
But still, even with Ewers, Texas has looked a bit shaky at times. Not as shaky as Oklahoma, but not quite as dominant as I want them to be. When Texas went down to Tuscaloosa and beat Alabama, I looked at them like, “Oh, wow. Texas is back. Texas is so legit. They can beat anybody. They could win the Natty this year.” But now, after the loss to Oklahoma and the near-loss to Houston, I’m not quite as sold on them.
However, I still do think that when they play their best, they could be the best team in the country, so for that reason I’m going to keep them in my True Contenders category.
Oregon, as we went over, I think they’re the best team in the Pac 12, I think they’re pretty legit, but I also don’t know if they are truly capable of beating one of the other teams. They just haven’t played anybody like a Georgia, or an Ohio State, or a Texas, or an Alabama. And I know it was last season, but it’s hard for me to get that 49-3 loss to Georgia out of my mind. I don’t think that would happen again if they played a team like Georgia, but it wouldn’t shock me if they lost by multiple touchdowns.
If I had to pick a category for Oregon, I might actually have to put them in the Pretenders category along with Washington, Oklahoma, Florida State and Michigan. But I’m not certain they’re pretenders like I am with those other four teams–I think it’s possible that actually Oregon is legit, and is able to beat Georgia, so I would rather just put them in the “Unsure” category.
Ohio State is another team I’m kind of leaning towards the “Unsure” or possibly even “Pretenders” category. I love their defense, but their quarterback, Kyle McCord, just has not been very good this year, and it doesn’t look like he’s improving much, if at all. Everything about Ohio State screams “National Championship” team–except their quarterback situation. It’s the only thing that’s holding them back.
If they had anybody else’s quarterback with maybe the exception of Alabama, I would pick them as my clear-cut National Championship favorite. If they still had CJ Stroud, I would bet all my money on them to win the Natty. They have a defense that might be the best in the country, their receivers are probably best in the country, they’re deep at running back, have a tight end that might win the Mackey now that Bowers is out, and their offensive line is coming together. The biggest weakness they have is quarterback, and for that reason I’m not able to confidently say I think they can beat Georgia and win a National Championship.
I guess I would put Ohio State in a category of their own called, “National Champions if McCord improves.”
So now we’re left with the two SEC teams. I’ve been trying to tell people all year to stop overreacting to Georgia’s bad games and focus on their good games–that’s who they really are. The real Georgia showed up and beat Kentucky 51-13, and then showed up this past weekend at the Cocktail Party and beat down on Florida 43-20. Now, neither Florida nor Kentucky are great teams, but they’re okay teams and Georgia just dominated them both. And the Florida game wasn’t even as close as the score–Florida got some garbage time points at the end there.
I think Georgia is the best team in the SEC and probably the best team in the country. Yet I don’t think they’re as good as they were last year or in 2021.
I think Georgia would beat Alabama this year, but I also wouldn’t be shocked if Alabama beats them.
And this goes back to my original point: this could be Alabama’s year by default just because of the obscene amount of talent they have on their roster. Georgia and Ohio State are ultra-talented, but Alabama is in a class of their own above both of them. If Alabama gets to the SEC Championship game and beats Georgia, then in my view, that might be their toughest test. They might not run into a more dangerous opponent in the playoff, and then we could be looking at a scenario where an Alabama team that has been derided all season (and I am one of the biggest offenders) is the favorite to win the National Championship.
Because of how much talent Bama has on their roster, it takes a truly special team to beat them. You don’t beat Alabama because you have superior talent, because nobody has superior talent. You beat them because you play a near-perfect game and your coaches coach their asses off. It’s got to be a perfect storm. I don’t know if any of these teams out there are capable of doing that.
It takes a special team to beat Alabama, like 2019 LSU, 2021 Georgia. And we already went over it: I don’t think we have a 2019 LSU or 2021 Georgia this year.
However, Alabama is also not as great as they were in the past. This is definitely the most beatable and flawed Alabama team since 2010. They’ve already lost to Texas. And they have not been impressive on multiple occasions this season–the Arkansas game, the South Florida game, the first half against Tennessee, and a good chunk of the A&M game.
This is a beatable Alabama team, for sure. And again, I do think Georgia would beat them.
But by no means is it a certainty. I’d probably call that a 60-40 game–60% Georgia wins, 40% Bama wins. Which means Bama can certainly win, and if they do, why can’t they win the Natty?
I guess this is all kind of crazy to me because of how much I wrote Bama off earlier in the year. I thought Texas was the clearly superior team when they played. That game was not fluky at all, it was the first time Bama had lost by double digits at home in a long time, I am on this theory that Saban is not what he used to be anymore, Bama isn’t Bama anymore–I was fully convinced that the dynasty run is over.
And I still do believe all that stuff. I do.
But what’s crazy to me is that even in spite of all that, I can see a path for Bama to win the Natty this year.
After the Texas game, and then the South Florida disaster, I thought there was absolutely zero chance Bama would win the Natty. I thought they were cooked, season over, they will probably lose 2-3 more games at a minimum. I thought A&M would beat them, I thought Ole Miss could beat them, I thought LSU would beat them, and then they wouldn’t get to Atlanta for the SEC Championship.
Well, now, they’ve beaten A&M, they’ve beaten Ole Miss, and the only hurdle between Bama and Atlanta is LSU this weekend in Tuscaloosa.
It’s not going to be an easy win for Bama, and I actually have LSU favored on the road in my power ratings, but it’s absolutely a winnable game for Bama. And I’d only have Georgia favored by 3 at a neutral site, so that matchup would be winnable as well.
It’s just crazy to me that, given how Bama started this season off, two winnable games are all that stands between them and going into the Playoffs as the favorites to win the whole thing.
Now, that said, I still think Georgia is the best team in the country, and they would be my pick to win the National Championship if you made me pick. I think they’ll get Bowers back by the SEC Championship game, and I think they’re just more complete than Bama is. Georgia’s defense might not be as ferocious as Alabama’s is, but it’s not far behind, and I think Georgia’s offense is far more competent than Alabama’s. Georgia is the better all-around team. Plus, I say this all the time, but Bama’s defense tends to get exposed when they play against highly competent passing attacks, and Georgia is highly competent at throwing the ball.
So that’s kind of my lay of the land as I see it heading into the last month of the season. Georgia would be my pick to win it all, but really my pick is going to be whoever wins the SEC.
Don’t even ask me to rank the teams because I couldn’t do it past Georgia at #1. I don’t know how I’d rank Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama and Texas, but I do know that would be the rest of my top-5. I’d probably put Oregon at 5 just because they rank the lowest on the talent composite of those 5 teams, but then again they look more complete than the others, so I don’t know.
And as much as I think Michigan is fraudulent, I think they absolutely could make the playoff (if they are not disqualified beforehand). They’d just have to beat Penn State and Ohio State, and Ohio State I think is better, but if Kyle McCord turns the ball over 3 times like he did against Wisconsin, Michigan probably wins that game.
I don’t think Michigan would have a chance in the playoff if they have to go through Georgia, Alabama, Texas or Oregon, however.
Plus, we haven’t even seen what Michigan looks like when they’re not able to cheat. They could be a completely different team. Everything we’ve seen out of them since 2021 has been With Stallions. Now they don’t have Stallions anymore, and every team they play will be able to prepare knowing that Michigan probably has all their signs. It’s possible Michigan goes back to their pre-2021 form, which means they are absolutely not a National Title contender at all.
However, I want to backtrack a little bit and get into the Alabama-LSU game. I mentioned it earlier but didn’t really dive into it. That’s the biggest game of this weekend, and probably the only remaining hurdle between Alabama and Atlanta.
Bama-LSU Preview and Prediction
There is a lot at stake in this game, and not only for Alabama. Conventional wisdom says that when you lose two games, you’re toast as far as the playoffs are concerned, but if there ever was going to be a 2-loss team make the playoffs, it would be an SEC team with some massive quality wins, and actually I think LSU has a chance to be the first 2-loss team to make the playoff if they are able to win this game and then go to Atlanta and beat Georgia in the SEC Championship.
If LSU shows some improvement on defense, and they have a road win over Bama plus they’re SEC Champions with a win over Georgia, I think they could get into the playoff if their competition is a one-loss team from the Pac 12 or something. They would probably need Florida State to miss the playoff somehow, which doesn’t seem likely, but then again the stronger Florida State looks, the better LSU’s loss to them holds up. And I think you’d be able to run with a narrative that LSU is a completely different team than they were when they lost to FSU and then later Ole Miss.
It’s still a low-probability outcome for LSU to make the playoff, even if they win the SEC. But I don’t think it’s completely out of the question.
For Bama, it’s pretty simple: if they lose this game, they are out of the playoff. They’d have two losses, and they’d lose the inside track to win the SEC West. They’d still be able to win the West if LSU slips up, but they’d no longer control their own destiny, and with 2 losses, again, they probably aren’t making the playoff even if they beat Georgia in Atlanta. With 2-losses, all Alabama could really do is play spoiler to Georgia. Maybe. Georgia might still make the playoff if they go 12-0 but lose close in the SEC Championship, depending on the national landscape.
LSU
- Elite offense. Best in the country. Jayden Daniels should be top-3 in the Heisman race because he’s pretty clearly the best quarterback in the country.
- Horrendously bad on defense. 107th in the country in yards per play allowed at 6.1, 75th in points per game allowed at 26.5, 105th in rush yards per carry allowed at 4.7. And this is an LSU team that has a 72-10 win over Grambling State and a 62-0 win over Army on their resume, too.
- To make matters worse, tons of injuries on defense. Defensive lineman Mekhi Wingo, one of their best players, out for the season. Three cornerbacks are out for this game so they will be starting two true freshmen at corner against Alabama.
Bama
- Prone to slow starts on offense. Milroe is very inconsistent–high upside, low floor on every play.
- However, offense should be able to score points simply because LSU is so bad on defense.
- Defense looks great, but I still think they will get exposed on the back end a bit because LSU is exactly the kind of team that tends to expose the Bama defenses: great quarterback, great receivers.
To me, this is a very simple game to understand, but it’s incredibly difficult to actually pick.
You’ve got the strength of LSU’s offense against the strength of Bama’s defense, but then you’ve got the weakness of LSU’s defense against the weakness of Bama’s offense.
It’s just so hard to try and figure out what is actually going to happen in this game, you know? I have no idea how these matchups will play out.
My gut is telling me that Bama’s offense will have more success against LSU’s defense than the other way around, and that’s why I lean Bama in this game. Plus it’s at home for them.
If LSU had even an okay defense, I would take them to win, but they don’t. I really could see them letting up 40+ points to this Bama offense, and not because the Bama offense is any good–just because they have really talented players and LSU’s defense is terrible.
But then I go back to what I’ve been saying: LSU is exactly the type of offense that tends to expose the Bama defense. Last year Tennessee did it: they had Hendon Hooker throwing to NFL receivers and just shredded that Bama secondary. Texas did it earlier this year. Joe Burrow, Jamarr Chase and Justin Jefferson did it in 2019. Trevor Lawrence and Justyn Ross did it in 2018.
It doesn’t happen often, but it happens reliably. Bama’s defenses have a lot of trouble when they run into teams with NFL talent at QB and receiver.
I really do think LSU could to score 35+ in this game.
And while I normally wouldn’t trust Bama’s offense to score 35+, when they’re going up against this LSU defense, that’s where I make an exception.
The more I talk this game out, the more I’m starting to gravitate towards a score prediction of like 41-34 with Bama winning.
The Vegas projection for this game, as of Tuesday night, is Bama winning 32-29.
Ultimately, I think Bama’s offense is less bad than LSU’s defense. Bama ranks 98th in rush yards per carry with 3.7, and 54th in offensive yards per play at 5.9. Those are not good numbers.
But the LSU defense, again, is even worse. 107th in the country in yards per play allowed at 6.1. 90th in pass yards allowed at 238.5. And 105th in the nation in yards per carry allowed at 4.7.
There’s just nothing for me to wrap my arms around with this LSU defense–there’s nothing I can point to and say, “Well at least they’re good at that.” It’s all bad. And I think the signs of life we’ve seen from them in recent weeks are more a function of playing Auburn (76th in offensive YPP) and Army (99th) than an indication that the LSU defense is actually improving.
I feel like Alabama is reliant on the big passing plays in order to score points. Every game of theirs that I’ve watched, it seems like if they’re not hitting 50-60 yard bombs (mostly against busted coverages, too), then they aren’t moving the ball.
So if I’m LSU, I would try to employ a bend-don’t-break style defense and just try to bank on the hope that Milroe cannot lead long, 10+ play methodical scoring drives–eventually, he will mess up and the drive will stall out if you just take away the deep shot and make him pick up 3, 4, 5 first downs.
You don’t even really have to be ferocious on defense, either. Like LSU does not have to be putting Milroe under constant pressure or blanketing the receivers–they just have to keep the receivers in front of them and eventually Milroe will miss a throw or two, because his accuracy comes and goes.
As long as you don’t let Milroe beat you on the deep ball, you can beat Bama. They scored two touchdowns against Texas–one was a 49 yard TD pass to Burton, the other was a 39 yard pass to Niblack. These Bama receivers are good at getting open deep. Bond had a 52 yard TD catch against A&M, Burton had 15 and a 19 yard TD catches in that game–against A&M, Bama’s touchdown drives were 6 plays, 6 plays and 5 plays.
Bond had a 46 yard TD catch against Tennessee. Bama’s other TD drive in the third quarter of that game was just 5 plays–there’s a real pattern emerging with how this Bama offense works. They are heavily dependent on the big passing plays.
If LSU can prevent those, they will win this game.
I just don’t think I trust LSU’s defense to do that. They rank 94th in the country in allowing 20+ yard plays–they have allowed 39 of them thus far through 8 games.
I’m not sure if I’m going to predict a game as high-scoring as 41-34. I think it will come in a bit below that, so I will say Bama wins 34-30.
Who is the Worst Offense in the Big Ten?
Right now, 6 of the top 10 defenses in the nation in terms of yards per play allowed reside in the Big Ten conference:
The top two teams are Ohio State and Penn State, and then you have Iowa at 5th, Michigan at 7th, Rutgers at 9th and Nebraska at 10th.
At face value, you might think that there is some incredible defense being played in the Big Ten. I mean, come on, just look at those numbers!
However, what if it’s more about the sorry state of offenses in the Big Ten than anything else?
This is just Power Five, not nationally, but still: 8 of the 10 lowest-scoring offenses in the Power Five are in the Big Ten. Which brings up an interesting dilemma: is the Big Ten great at defense, or bad at offense?
Both are probably true, the question is just which is the bigger factor here. Is it more about the offenses being bad, or more about the defenses being bad? That’s a question that we probably can’t definitively answer until bowl season, when we will see these Big Ten teams go up against teams from other conferences. But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s bad offenses.
This is like the opposite version of what the Big 12 used to be. The Big 12 used to be known for ridiculously high-scoring games, but you never quite knew if it was because the Big 12 had great offenses or it was just a result of nobody playing defense. The answer was somewhere in between, but come bowl season, it was definitely clear that it was skewed more towards the “Bad defenses” answer. Like, for instance, you saw 2019 Oklahoma go to the playoff against LSU and lose 63-28.
Look, the Big Ten is definitely a defensive-based conference, for sure. It kind of has to be based on geography and climate–the Big Ten is in the midwest, they’ve got the coldest and nastiest weather of any conference. It’s not really conducive to have a high-flying offense. You have to be able to run the ball and play physical defense to win in the Big Ten around this time of year, so it’s only natural that Big Ten teams are built in this fashion. Part of it is also in the recruiting base: the Midwest produces more offensive and defensive linemen, linebackers, and tight ends than it does perimeter athletes.
You think about how South Florida is the hotbed for wide receivers–you’re not finding a whole lot of 4.3 freak receivers in Nebraska and Indiana. There’s a reason Brian Hartline has built up a pipeline in South Florida, and pulls so many good receivers out of Texas and California as well–you have to get outside of the Big Ten footprint if you want elite offensive skill.
I also haven’t seen any Big Ten team look particularly impressive on offense this year. Michigan has good offensive numbers, but then again, they cheat so how much of that is actually legitimate? Ohio State has by far the best offensive talent in the conference, but their offense has been pretty unimpressive so far this season. It’s nowhere near what it was last season, and it’s because the quarterback play has regressed.
The reason I would say Ohio State’s defense is pretty legit is that they have that non-conference data point from their game against Notre Dame–they held Notre Dame to 14 points. But even Notre Dame isn’t exactly some elite offense, plus, while they’re not in the Big Ten, they’re still a midwestern team located in the heart of Big Ten country–spiritually, Notre Dame is a Big Ten team. Their head coach is a former Ohio State linebacker.
I guess the main reason I would trust Ohio State’s defense over the other Big Ten teams is because of what they have to face in practice every week–their corners have to cover Marvin Harrison, Emeka Egbuka, Cade Stover and all those great pass-catchers. The Ohio State defense is less-likely to be shocked when they go up against a team that has elite offensive talent, because at least they’ve seen that caliber of player in practice.
All this is to say, it’s good that the Big Ten will be adding Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA next season, because the conference really needs a boost on the offensive side of the ball. UCLA, though–they’re almost built like a Big Ten team themselves. They play stout defense and aren’t super dynamic on offense.
The real question I wanted to ask, though, is this: who’s the worst offense in the Big Ten? We’re going to exclude the three dominant powers of the Big Ten–Ohio State, Penn State and the cheaters–as well as Maryland, because we know it’s not any of them. Maryland is the one team in the conference that’s not built in prototypical Big Ten fashion–they sling the ball around and have talented pass-catchers.
But the rest of them–Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, Rutgers and Michigan State–are basically all the same team. (Although Michigan State is just bad on both offense and defense, they can’t even say they’re a defensive team.)
The past few years the running joke has been that Iowa is great on defense and special teams and doesn’t play a lick of offense, but this year it seems like most of the conference has turned into Iowa as well. The phenomenon of stout defense + horrendously bad offense isn’t just isolated to Iowa anymore. We are bearing witness to the “Iowaification” of the Big Ten.
So who is the worst of them all on offense?
Turns out, it’s still Iowa!
In a conference where it seems like everyone is trying to be like Iowa, you still can’t beat the real thing.
And obviously the big news this week out of Iowa City is that the services of offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz will no longer be needed at the conclusion of the season. So it may be that the days of Iowa being the most pathetic offense in the country are over–if they can get the new coordinator hire right.
Ohio State 24, Wisconsin 10
Treyveon Henderson is a true difference-maker at running back. It’s not a surprise that in the three games he missed, Ohio State fans started freaking out thinking their offensive line forgot how to run block.
The speed, power and shiftiness Henderson showed against Wisconsin should make it clear to Ohio State fans that their offense really needs him, and that their running game just isn’t the same without him. He looked like one of the best running backs in the country on Saturday night–if not the best.
I think Ohio State is a National Championship team at almost every position. Great defensive line, incredible secondary, so-so at linebacker–overall on defense, excellent. Wide receivers, we know they have probably the best in the country. Tight end: Mackey Award candidate. Running backs? Well, if Treyveon Henderson plays like he did against Wisconsin, there might not be a better running back room in the country, honestly. Offensive line? Pass blocking has been good, run blocking suddenly looks great when Henderson is back there.
The only question mark position for Ohio State is quarterback. I don’t think Kyle McCord is a National Championship quarterback. Maybe if this was 2004, he could be one.
Back in the 2000s, great defenses beat great offenses every single time. Every time. 2002 Natty, Miami Hurricanes pull up with all those NFL players on offense–they lose to Ohio State who had the defense. 2003, Oklahoma sets all these records offensively, Heisman quarterback–they get completely shut down by Nick Saban’s LSU defense. 2008, Oklahoma rolls in with Heisman winner Sam Bradford and a record-shattering offense that dropped 60+ on everybody–except Florida with that defense smothered them and won the game 24-14. Even into the 2010s, anytime Oregon would get to the Natty with their “warp speed” video game offense, they’d get completely shut down by some other team that had a physical defense.
I am not sure you can win a National Championship with a quarterback as limited as Kyle McCord is in this era of college football. The best comp, I guess, would be Mac Jones, but even Mac Jones was a lot better than McCord is right now. I’m thinking, like…. I don’t know… Jake Coker with Alabama in 2015? That might be the only comp. We are no longer in the AJ McCarron/Greg McIlroy Alabama dynasty era where you can win consistently with quarterbacks like that. I’m not saying McCord has to be Joe Burrow, but he has to be better than he’s playing right now.
McCord is simply a turnover and mistake machine. He almost had a game-changing strip-sack fumble against Penn State that was called off by a flag. He had a strip sack fumble and two INTs against Wisconsin PLUS two intentional grounding penalties. He could’ve been picked off like 4 times against Notre Dame–he is turning into a liability. He came into this game against Wisconsin with only 1 INT thrown on the season, but in terms of interceptable passes that simply weren’t picked off, the number was way higher.
At a certain point, if he doesn’t improve, teams are going to start picking those passes off instead of dropping them, and you saw that against Wisconsin. The “near-interceptions” turned into interceptions. And I feel like he’s been strip-sacked every game for the past month.
When you have a defense as good as Ohio State’s, you can survive those turnovers against a team like Wisconsin. You turn the ball over 3 times and your defense still only lets up 10 points–that’s a luxury that will no longer be there when you start playing better and better teams. You can’t turn the ball over three times against the Cheaters and expect to win. You cannot turn the ball over three times against Georgia, or Texas, or Oregon and still hope to win. It’s just not possible.
But it’s not just the turnovers that concern me with McCord. It’s the inaccuracy issues that for whatever reason seem to be much more prevalent in the first half than the second half (and all of his turnovers against Wisconsin, by the way, were in the first half). It’s not seeing the field well and ignoring open receivers. There’s just so much that McCord needs to improve on that I’m not confident he can do it in the next three weeks.
Now, I will cut him some slack, he’s been dealing with an ankle injury for a while and it got reaggravated against Wisconsin. Not having a solid plant foot definitely screws with your accuracy.
And the bigger problem for Ohio State is that the backup quarterback who all the Buckeye fans online are clamoring for, Devin Brown, also has a messed up ankle, having hurt it against Penn State. Even if Ryan Day wanted to make a change at quarterback, I don’t think it’s possible right now. Maybe next week or the week after, but if you’re going to make a change, you want to give Devin Brown as many tune-up games as possible before Michigan, and I don’t know when Devin Brown will be healthy enough to play.
However, reports are that Devin Brown is back at practice this week, so he might be available sooner than people think.
During the QB competition in training camp, there was word that Devin Brown was ahead at times, and it even looked like he could be named the starting quarterback a few weeks prior to the start of the season. But Ryan Day ultimately went with McCord to start off, while also giving Brown some reps here and there. I don’t think Devin Brown really got a fair shake of it, but nevertheless, by about week three Kyle McCord was named the starter and Brown was named the backup.
Still, there are a lot in the Ohio State fanbase who think Brown is the better quarterback, and now that McCord has been shaky, they are getting more vocal in their support for Brown.
From what I gather, Ryan Day chose to go with McCord over Brown because McCord had the higher floor. Brown was viewed as the higher ceiling guy, but he also had a lower floor–and that means he was probably more turnover-prone and erratic despite having more pure talent.
So Day chose Kyle McCord because he’s more steady and takes better care of the football, even though he might not have the upside Brown has. But if Kyle McCord is turning the ball over anyway, then it doesn’t really make sense to stick with him as the starter over Devin Brown, does it? If both of your quarterbacks are turnover-prone, then you might as well go with the one that has more upside and more arm talent.
Devin Brown has only got 22 pass attempts on the season, so we really haven’t seen much of him. But what little we have seen of him, particularly in the Youngstown State, Western Kentucky and Purdue games in mop-up duty, he’s looked pretty dynamic. He just looks like he has better confidence, better ball placement on downfield throws, and the offense is more explosive with him in there. Plus, he’s more mobile and has better escapability than McCord does. He’s a bit raw, but then again you look at McCord and it’s not like he’s this super polished guy with impeccable mechanics. McCord’s footwork is horrible.
The way it looks to me is if Brown gets healthy, and McCord doesn’t start to improve, I would not be shocked if Ryan Day makes a change at quarterback.
There is a tried and true history of this working out at big time programs. Nick Saban famously benched Jalen Hurts at halftime of the 2017 National Championship game, with Alabama losing to Georgia 13-0. Saban put in the true freshman Tua Tagovailoa, and Tua led them to a comeback win in overtime.
In 2018, Dabo benched quarterback Kelly Bryant and put in true freshman phenom Trevor Lawrence. Clemson hadn’t lost a game to that point, but they weren’t exactly impressive. With Trevor Lawrence at QB, Clemson went on to go 15-0 and win the National Championship–then they won their first 14 games of the 2019 season, making it all the way to the National Championship before losing to Joe Burrow’s LSU team.
Ohio State is ranked #1 in the nation right now. They have an elite roster across the board, and they might have the best defense in the country. Ryan Day cannot squander this opportunity to win a National Championship, because it’s there for the taking. He cannot just stubbornly stick with Kyle McCord and let a chance to win a National Title pass him by.
The quarterback position is Ohio State’s only question mark. It really is. If they don’t win a National Championship, it will be because they weren’t good enough at quarterback. That’s the only reason. Every other unit on the team is National Championship-caliber. If Ryan Day thinks for even a second that his team might be better off with Devin Brown at quarterback, he has to make the move the second Brown is healthy enough to get back out there.
The QB competition was close. We know this for a fact. It wasn’t settled until a few games into the season. Ohio State was starting to use Brown as a red zone QB run threat before he got hurt. That tells me they see him as a player who is too good to keep off the field. They were trying to find ways to use him.
You are 8 games into the season now, and I don’t think anybody who has watched Ohio State thinks that they can win a National Championship with Kyle McCord at quarterback. Certainly McCord had that great drive against Notre Dame at the end–he hasn’t been bad.
But to win a National Championship, you need your quarterback to be better than “not bad.” You need him to be an asset–a plus-player. A value-adder, not value-neutral. Certainly not value-negative.
Ohio State’s defense, as great as it is, is not going to hold everybody they play to under 17 points. They’re not holding Georgia under 17, they’re not holding Florida State under 17, they’re not holding Oregon under 17–they will have to score 30+ against those teams to win a Natty. I think that’s unavoidable. Ohio State fans who think it will be possible to win playoff games with scores like 20-17 or 17-14, that’s just delusional.
As great as Ohio State’s defense has been, it has not gone up against an elite level offense like Florida State, Georgia, Oregon, Washington and Texas have.
Ohio State has to get better at quarterback if they want to win a National Championship. There is no way around it. Even though they’re #1 in the country, they’re still not good enough to win it all. Either Kyle McCord has to improve, or they have to try out Devin Brown.
There is really no time to lose right now. If McCord doesn’t look markedly improved against Rutgers, I think you have to make the switch to Brown after that game. You give Brown the Michigan State game and the Minnesota game to get comfortable, and then it’s go time in Ann Arbor for the whole shebang.
The difficulty for Ohio State was the Notre Dame game in week 4. If they had a schedule like Michigan’s or Georgia’s–a back-loaded schedule where most of your tough games aren’t until November, I think Day would’ve gone with Devin Brown to give him like 8-9 games to get comfortable. But I feel like Brown might not have been quite ready for the Notre Dame game in week 4, and McCord was seen as their best chance to win that game, so they went with him, and then stuck with him because, well, he won the game.
At this point, I think Ohio State’s best hope is to throw Devin Brown out there and pray he’s able to expedite the whole acclimation process in time for the Michigan game. I’m still leaving open the possibility that Kyle McCord starts to improve, but I seriously doubt it at this point.
I think Ryan Day has to see the writing on the wall and realize that Ohio State is not winning a National Championship with Kyle McCord at quarterback. They may not win one with Devin Brown, either, but I think they have better odds of doing so if in fact Devin Brown is able to hit the ground running.
To me, it’s a no-brainer. Sticking with Kyle McCord is like striking out looking. You may still strike out with Devin Brown, but at least you’ll be going down swinging.
You stick with McCord, then your best hope is to narrowly beat Michigan in a low-scoring game, win the Big Ten, and then lose 31-20 in the playoff to a team like Georgia, Oregon, FSU or Texas. If you switch to Devin Brown at QB, and he pans out, you can beat all of those teams and win it all.
This right here is where Ryan Day earns his money. He’s the QB guru. Every other position group on the team is National Championship-level. Day has to figure out the QB position in the next three weeks or else there will be no National Championship for Ohio State.
Michigan Cheating Scandal Continues
Do Michigan fans think Ohio State fans are afraid to play them? Do they really think that?
They must have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Ohio State fans viewed last year’s game, but then again that wouldn’t be surprising considering Michigan fans have been in a perpetual state of manic delusion since November 27, 2021.
No Ohio State fan thinks they lost that game last year legitimately. Michigan scored 35 points on 5 fluky, busted plays, but other than that, they were getting smothered.
And now that we know Michigan has been cheating for the past two seasons (plus this one), everyone in Buckeye Nation knows cheating played a massive role in why last year’s game played out the way it did (although in fairness, probably not as much in the 2021 game).
So this idea that Michigan was “22 points better” than Ohio State last year is pure bunk. No Ohio State fans think they were actually 22 points worse than Michigan. Ohio State was better than Georgia last year–you think they really believe Michigan was better than both of them?
And this idea that Michigan is so scary and dominant this year–they’ve cheated this whole time!
I was watching the Pete Thamel interview on the McAfee show today and McAfee said something like, “What Michigan has been able to do this year has been just unbelievable.”
And it’s like, “Yeah, exactly!”
It’s unbelievable. It’s too good to be true.
Michigan fans keep touting this stat where I guess they’re the first team, like, ever to score 30+ and allow 7 or less in every game to start a season, and to them it’s evidence that they’re a lock to win the Natty, but now in light of the cheating scandal it’s like…. Uh, yeah, well there’s a perfectly good explanation for that, and it’s not that you’re the greatest team ever assembled.
Returning to the Thamel interview on McAfee, a few things he said:
- The NCAA investigation is going to take a while. Even if they concluded it today, they have to notify Michigan, and then Michigan has 90 days to respond, and then that begins the whole back and forth process which is a bit like a court case. Michigan’s people will dispute the NCAA’s findings, the NCAA will come back with their counter responses, and then eventually the NCAA hands down a final verdict along with a penalty. That could take over a year, maybe more.
- It’s really up to the Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti as to whether any action is taken against Michigan this year, in the middle of the season. The CFP committee has made it clear they want no part of this–they are just going to evaluate Michigan like the cheating scandal never came to light, I guess. So it’s really all on Pettiti, but Thamel indicated that the Big Ten really doesn’t want to take a stand here–they want to basically just defer to the NCAA, even though there are 13 other Big Ten schools demanding they take some sort of action against Michigan.
- And the 13 other schools are right. Even if Michigan’s cheating has been exposed and teams on their schedule are aware their signs are compromised, taking steps to mitigate the damage is an issue unto itself. There’s only a certain amount of hours a week the NCAA allows teams to practice, so any time these teams spend changing their signs takes away from time they should spend practicing. Even if the competitive advantage Michigan gained by stealing signs is blunted to a large extent, it’s not been completely neutralized.
- However, the Big Ten probably looks at Michigan as perhaps their best chance to win a National Championship. Even though you know I think that’s nonsense because Michigan has zero chance of winning a National Championship, they’re viewing this in terms of money. They have no interest in disqualifying potentially their biggest cash cow.
Also, in reference to the possibility that Connor Stalions was in disguise on the Central Michigan sidelines in the game at Michigan State, Thamel basically confirmed it was him.
THAMEL: “You’re only allowed 50 coaches, under NCAA rules, in your ‘box.’ There’s a white designated coaching box between the 20s. Stalions’ pass [Thamel referred to the guy in the picture as Stalions, perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not]… his pass is “VB” which is “Vistor’s Bench.” He was essentially given, like, coaching access, which is hard to get. There isn’t a lot of it. And that has to be signed off by the coach and the athletic director, for whoever is going to do that. So that’s essentially your EQ guys, trainers, obviously assistant coaches, personnel folks–it’s the inner circle of a program designated for coaching the game. So, it will be very interesting to see how Central Michigan ends up playing this and explaining this—”
MCAFEE: “That’s him though, right?”
THAMEL: “The fact that they [CMU] can’t tell you it’s NOT him at this point, it sure looks like him.”
So it was definitely Stalions there on the CMU sideline, in disguise.
The question becomes, then, whether he was there scouting Michigan State, or whether he was doing that PLUS helping out Central Michigan by giving them Michigan State’s signs, trying to more or less sabotage Michigan State.
People online are pretty convinced that Michigan gave South Carolina help in their game against Tennessee last year, because Michigan wanted to knock Tennessee out of the playoff. So this wouldn’t be the first allegation of Michigan trying to sabotage other teams.
(By the way, with each passing week, it looks more and more like Michigan gave some under the table assistance to South Carolina for its games against Tennessee and Clemson last year. South Carolina was horrible before those two games and after–they are 2-6 this year. One week before the Tennessee game, which South Carolina won 63-38, they lost to Florida 38-6. That win over Tennessee seems more and more improbable with each passing week.)
But the thing here with Central Michigan investigating whether or not it was Stalions on their sideline: why would we believe what CMU has to say on the matter? They are complicit in the matter. Even if he wasn’t there to help them beat Michigan State, they still let him in for some reason. Once the internet discovered those shots of Stalions on the CMU sideline, CMU then became implicated in the scandal. They have every incentive to “clear” themselves and say nope, it wasn’t Stalions. Because it was Stalions (and it was Stalions), then the question for CMU becomes, “Why did you let him onto your sideline? What was he doing there?” And then CMU is in a place where they essentially have to admit that they were complicit in breaking NCAA rules.
So really, the only investigation I would trust here is the investigation conducted by Michigan State. Michigan State has no reason to cover for Stalions, if anything they’d want to nail Michigan in any way they can. The game was played in their stadium, they have access to the surveillance cameras, and presumably they’d have a record of every person who was let onto the field for that game, regardless of which sideline. I mean, it’s certainly possible that CMU has full autonomy over who they allow into their coaches box, and they don’t have to provide a full list of names to Michigan State stadium security, but I doubt it.
Either way, Stalions was wearing a Visitor’s Box pass around his neck. Somebody has a full list of names for all the Visitor’s Box passes handed out for that game. He was either wearing a pass of his own that says “Connor Stalions”, but after the game on Tuesday night against NIU, CMU head coach Jim McElwain said that name didn’t appear anywhere. So then it narrows it down to one of three possibilities: he stole someone else’s VB pass, he was using a fake name, or it simply wasn’t him.
But it was him.
And you also have to wonder how he was able to get his hands on Central Michigan coaching gear. I was listening to Kirk Barton’s show on YouTube and he was saying that when you see all the coaches wearing that matching gear, that’s typically not stuff that’s just available at Dick’s Sporting Goods or Academy or at the Campus apparel shop–most coaching staffs wear stuff that isn’t available to the general public.
Plus, the game was in East Lansing, not Mt. Pleasant (where CMU is located). So it’s not like Stalions would’ve been able to just pick up some CMU gear once he got into town–much less gear that matches what all the other CMU assistant coaches were wearing, which probably isn’t even available in stores in Mt. Pleasant, much less East Lansing. So if that was him on the CMU sideline (and it was him), then that means he was given that custom CMU polo shirt he was wearing by someone on the CMU staff. He certainly might have been able to order one online beforehand, but I’ve tried looking for that same gray Adidas CMU polo shirt and I haven’t been able to find it anywhere. There are some that look similar, but I couldn’t find any available to order with the white Adidas logo on the sleeve. I’m pretty sure that was team-issued gear he was wearing.
So that would implicate CMU in the cheating scandal–or at least somebody on the CMU staff. But as we now know with NCAA rules, it doesn’t matter if the head coach had no knowledge of something, if it happened in his program, he’s ultimately responsible for it no matter what. Jim McElwain might be in some hot water here.
And, as if all this wasn’t enough, Josh Pate put out a few tweets suggesting that maybe Stalions was wearing a type of Ray Ban sunglasses that have a camera built into them.
The guy wrote a 600 page Michigan Manifesto. I wouldn’t put anything past him.
This is just getting crazier and crazier by the day. It won’t end well for Michigan, but apparently they are nevertheless charging ahead and finalizing a contract that makes Jim Harbaugh the highest paid coach in the Big Ten. I’m sure the NCAA will love that.
The whole manner in which Michigan fans (and apparently the university itself) are behaving is reminiscent of this funny anecdote about when Napoleon escaped from his exile in Elba in 1815, and how the Paris newspapers reported:
The Paris newspapers, who reported with the utmost confidence that there was no way Napoleon would ever get anywhere near Paris. Well, he might get close to Paris, but there is absolutely no chance he will take the city. And then, before they knew it, Napoleon was “His Imperial and Royal Majesty” once again.
Michigan fans’ behavior right now reminds me of this funny story. Michigan did nothing wrong! Well, maybe they did something wrong, but there’s no proof! Well, maybe there’s some proof, but everyone else is doing this–it’s not just Michigan! And at any rate, Ryan Day is behind all of this!
HARBAUGH ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE! CONTRACT EXTENSION! WE ARE GOING TO WIN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!
Then, one day soon, after getting blasted in the playoffs, Harbaugh will be out of there, and the NCAA will vacate three seasons worth of wins and impose a bowl ban. Michigan fans will deny it’s happening right up until the moment it all happens.
Fade the Public 